


sun in her hair, hope in her eyes

by burnedtocrisp



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Camping, Crestwood (Dragon Age), Hmmm interesting, I can't help myself, I'm assuming Alistair hang out with them for a bit?, OC- Arille Tabris, alistair really misses his wife okay, minor Solasmance, realized all of my DA OCs are elven women, story time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 12:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21179576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnedtocrisp/pseuds/burnedtocrisp
Summary: Alistair has a realization after spending a day with the Inquisitor: she reminds him very much of another elf he knew who was also desperately trying to save the world. Maybe he'll mention this.Cue story-time bonding over a campfire.





	sun in her hair, hope in her eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't fact-check any of this against the lore. This is just from what I remember from the games, so apologies for any misspellings/inaccuracies.

Alistair returns from gathering firewood to find that the campsite is very nearly empty. When he had left, Hawke and Varric were regaling an enraptured Sera with tales from Kirkwall while Cassandra brooded off to the side in disapproval. Solas was carefully trimming and packaging herbs collected during their trek across Crestwood today, studiously ignoring the raucous show Hawke was putting on mere feet away. 

Now, the campsite is quiet. A light remains on in Varric’s tent, but everyone else appears to have retired for the night. The only person that remains is the Inquisitor herself, perched on a stump, legs folded in front of her and back ramrod straight as she replaces the grip on her staff. The dying fire flickers over her vallaslin, shadowing her eyes and dripping down her neck, disappearing into the collar of the tunic she wears. 

She glances up as he approaches, fierce, turquoise eyes sparkling against the black of her tattoos as she nods in his direction before returning to her task. Alistair gets the fire stoked again, the flames licking up towards the night sky as he sits back, stretching out across the plush grass.

For a moment, he just watches her. This tiny elven woman with flaxen hair had greatly impressed him today. Her magic is strong, and she held her own in the skirmishes they had come across, even when they had accidentally angered a druffalo into stampeding. He was pleasantly surprised when she insisted on going to check on a woman by the lake to ensure that she was safe before continuing on. During the walk, Varric had told him and Hawke about how it had taken them so long to get to Alistair’s cave because the Inquisitor had insisted on closing the rift and stopping the flow of undead into Crestwood. It had taken five days for the group to defeat the bandits squatting in the fort, release the dam, track their way into the caves, find the rift, and close it, but apparently Naya had insisted that it was just as necessary, if not more so, than finding the Warden Alistair and continuing her quest to defeat Corypheus.

His heart pangs when he realizes it- she reminds him so much of Arille.

Alistair thinks back to Redcliffe, that awful realization that the place he had grown up in was under attack, that these villagers may not last the night, and that their chance for winning a Landsmeet may very well be gone. But Arille, Maker bless her, Arille who had just been dragged from her Alienage after the worst experience he could imagine and placed in charge of the whole world, took it in stride. Alistair had stayed in the Chantry with Leliana, helping Teagan with barricades and settling the civilians in. When he emerged several hours later it was to the sound of the blacksmith hammer pounding, militiamen lining up in formation, looking heartened, and the templars rolling what smelled like barrels of oil up the hill. As he watched, Arille descended with an elf armed with a bow and arrow and a very sour looking man in an apron. Sten then emerged from a side street dragging along a very heavily armored dwarven man, flanked by what looked like two mercenaries. In the hours he had spent in the chantry, Arille had covered the entire town, ensuring every able-bodied person who could fight would be joining the defense of Redcliffe. She had found an additional barrier for the undead with the oil barrels and somehow talked the blacksmith into making repairs. In mere hours she had developed a ragtag army of volunteers into a force with a fighting chance.

It was then that he knew the Blight would be defeated, if only he kept following her.

As he gaped at the developments, she approached. Apparently having found armor somewhere, she was clad in iron, an odd pattern of light, hammered circles that overlapped like fish scales. She was armed with the dagger she had bought in Lothering and the longsword she had brought with her from Ostagar that Alistair heavily suspected came from the Bann of the Alienage in Denerim. Her light hair had been tied back, tightly, in a braid that ran down the back of her head, close to her scalp before falling down her back between her weapons. Her eyes, such a light blue, looked at him and then down at her feet as she smiled a bashful little smile and handed him a gorgeous longsword. Arille had apparently gotten it by volunteering to find a distraught woman’s younger brother and then paying them double what the sword was worth after returning the boy to his sister.

It was then that Alistair knew he was in love with this woman, savior of humanity or no. He knew he would follow her until his last breath.

Snapping back to the present, he lets out a sigh. But he hadn’t followed her this time. She hadn’t allowed him to. And perhaps it is for the best. If he had gone with her, who would stop Clarel and what would surely amount to the destructions of the Wardens? But that did not stop the pang in his chest every time he glances at the Inquisitor and all he can see was a small, elven woman with flaxen hair tied in a braid close to her scalp doing her best to save the world.

He watches her now, closely. Of course, they are different women. Arille is no mage, jumpy around magic when anyone other than Morrigan is using it. She had not grown up free in the forests with the Dalish gods and the Hallah, but in an Alienage with a Hahren and one large tree. While she saved the world, she did so as a fugitive for the most part, and while some did try, no one really regarded her as holy.

But, he thought, as he watches the Inquisitor carefully tie the died blue fabric into intricate knots where her fingers could rest comfortably, their hearts are made of the same stuff. Whatever makes them look danger in the face and go toe to toe with death despite their fear, whatever makes these women see the suffering of everyone in the world and decide to stop and sacrifice and help, whatever is inside them that pulls them through impossible situations as victors – whatever it is, both of them have it.

Perhaps, he muses, it is something unique to small, elven women with steel in their spines and sun in their hair.

“Warden Alistair?” Her voice jolts him from his thoughts, and he realizes, blushing, that he has been staring at her for too long to be appropriate with a small smile on his lips. She looks back at him now, head cocked. “Are you alright?”

He shakes his head, laughing a little in embarrassment. “Yes, Inquisitor, apologies. I was lost in thought.”

And then, for whatever Maker-forsaken reason, he continues.

“It’s just, you remind me of her sometimes. Arille, I mean. The Hero of Ferelden. I think she would approve very much of what you have done so far.”

Immediately, he feels like an idiot. What if she thinks he’s lumping elves together, unable to distinguish between two separate individuals? What is she thinks this is entirely inappropriate? What if she doesn’t like Arille for some reason, and he’s just offended her? Or, his stomach drops in horror, what if she thinks he’s coming on to her, trying to find some sort of creepy replacement for his wife?

Instead, she straightens up even more, her eyes widening as a smile creeps across her face. “Really?” she asks, incredulously, grinning like he had just told her something incredible.

“Well…yes,” he replies, watching in astonishment as the kind-hearted but stoic Inquisitor he had traveled beside all day transformed into a young, twenty-something girl wriggling slightly in excitement. “You and she would make similar decisions, I think. Were you ever to meet, it’s likely you would be friends.”

“_Really_?” she asks again, dropping her legs down to lean over her knees towards him. “We tell stories of her, you know, in my clan. My favorite is the one of Orzammar; where the Hero of Ferelden beat fully-grown dwarves in the Proving by transforming into a Mabari! Or no! My favorite is when she got captured trying to free Queen Anora, and then fought her way out of the most heavily guarded fort in the country with her bare fists and the magic of the Gods!”

Alistair has to fight back a laugh. He does not want to diminish her earnestness. He simply can’t help but think back to Arille griping about how the stories of their adventures got so exaggerated, that by turning from the reality of the situation something important is lost. But he also remembers the tilt in her lips anytime someone brought up Fort Drakon and her miraculous escape. No matter how hard she tried she was never able to fully conceal the smugness that came with that tale.

_ Ah, Arille_, Alistair thinks as he watched the Inquisitor launch into her favorite retelling across the fire. _I wish you could see what those exaggerations inspire – and who they are inspired in_.

It has been many years, and some stories are tinged with pain and sorrow and the regret of a man looking back on the actions of a boy, but Alistair feels, at this moment, a pull to tell a few of them.

So, Alistair sits with the Inquisitor (her name is Naya, apparently) well into the night, past the time that Varric’s tent finally goes dark, and tells the tale of the Grey Wardens during the Fifth Blight. She sits, enraptured, eventually coming around to his side of the fire after Sera sleepily groans for quiet.

“And, yeah, maybe it’s not magical powers, but she walked right out the front gates with the soldier wishing her luck on her patrol,” Alistair finishes some time later, chuckling at the memory of Arille calmly strolling into the Denerim town square in borrowed armor, seemingly shocked at the level of alarm and relief that greeted her. He refrains from telling Inquisitor Naya about the particularly eventful reunion that resulted after that. Some things were to remain between him and his wife.

Naya manages to finally stop chortling, hand clapped over her mouth to prevent waking the others, only letting out a quiet snort occasionally. When she has calmed herself, she sighs, looking him in the eye. Once again, she resembles the Inquisitor he has known, firm and proud. “Alright, Warden Alistair,” she says. “I think I’ve taken enough of your time. There’s still so much to do tomorrow and you have a long journey West to prepare for.”

Nodding, Alistair begins to stand, groaning as his knees pops and his ankle clicks.

Beside him, Naya stands in one fluid motion as he watches on, jealously.

“However,” she speaks again, quietly, catching his attention. Her eyes are on her boots as she scuffs the toe in the dirt. “I want you to know that tonight you have gifted me one of the greatest compliments of my life. Hero Arille is _my_ hero, personally. And I hope that someday soon, you get her back.”

Without pause after that, she swings around primly and ducks into the tent she shares with Solas, leaving Alistair staring at the spot she had been, jaw a little loose.

Then he smiles, rubs the back of his neck, and turns to his own tent.

_ You see, Arille. Even the Inquisitor is rooting for us. And you have to meet your biggest fan._

_ Come home. Please. _

A few tents over from his, the Inquisitor slides into the bedroll Solas is already tucked into, worming her way into his arms as he sleepily adjusts around her, tucking his head over hers.

“Guess what,” she whispered.

All she gets in response is a grunt that could be interpreted as inquisitive, but it is good enough for Naya.

“Warden Alistair just told me the most wonderful stories about the Hero of Ferelden, and, _and _he said that _I remind him of her_. Can you believe that?”

Solas, on the brink of sleep, only smiles and presses a kiss onto her forehead. “Of course I can.”


End file.
